Your Heart

"Listen to your heart."

Your Heart are so named because this is their message. Listen to their music, sure, but listen to yourself. Be yourself. Follow your dreams. Forget about irony and stylishness - this is a band that makes dinner together before practice and will occasionally start a show with a moment of silence so everyone in attendance can think of something to be thankful for.

Following a dream is where the whole thing began six years ago. Unable to find a job, frontman Andrew Huang posted an eBay auction declaring that he would write and record a song for the winning bidder. It was an innovative idea, but certainly didn't sound like big business. Huang expected he might bring in enough to buy a sandwich. Imagine his surprise when the winning bid was enough to cover that month's groceries. A few auctions later he'd made rent.

Enlisting the help of a friend to code a website to house his quirky songs-to-order, songstowearpantsto.com was born. Huang began recording several songs a day based on visitors' instructions - often for free and usually with a comedic twist. The site gained momentum quickly on the strength of Huang's sense of humor and musical proficiency; four days after posting his first song, MTV offered to buy his soul. (He said no thanks.)

Huang's non-stop creative output and versatility have garnered him praise from such sources as Harper's Magazine and CBC's The Hour. The Globe & Mail was surprised by his "uncanny ability to create authentic compositions in such a wide range of genres." The website's calculated zaniness and genre whiplash attracted an audience in the hundreds of thousands, who flooded Huang's inbox with song suggestions.

Joined by a rhythm section of friends Mike Wood and Leah Hunter, Huang began developing Songs To Wear Pants To's live show - a strange brand of nerdy, musical comedy that would consistently win over venues full of hipsters, and even attracted an offer to join a Canadian tour organized by Murray Daigle (producer for Not By Choice and The Full Blast, among many other bands).

Soon enough though, the trio felt drawn to play more of the deeper, serious songs that Songs To Wear Pants To had spawned - for instance "Stay", which appears on their debut album Summer, released in September of 2009. For the CD release of these love-laced songs they donned a new name, Your Heart, and added friends and spouses to the band, now an 8-piece including flute, cello and violin. While still connected to Songs To Wear Pants To, Your Heart became its own entity, embarking on a mission to produce one album dedicated to each season of the year.

The bridge between Songs To Wear Pants To and Your Heart has always been there, but never so clearly as with "Never", a 5/4 pop/rock ballad of devastating heartache which has brought many a fan to tears. Composed in response to the suggestion to write about something he had never done, Huang chose the lyrical angle of love lost and sings I never got to say goodbye, baby, goodbye / I've never moved on. The fan response to "Never" was tremendous, prompting Huang and film director Karl Richter to conceptualize a music video for it. Offering fans CDs, t-shirts, and even some of Huang's own instruments, they raised an astounding $8,000 in 8 weeks, and are currently in preparations for the shoot.

March 2010 saw the release of Fall, a free digital EP including the single for another fan favorite "Love #1" with six b-sides. Your Heart's sophomore album, Autumn, will be available on April 9. Eschewing the CD route this time, Autumn will be released as a limited edition book containing download codes for the album's 10 songs and artwork based on the lyrics.

With Winter and Spring already in the works, there will be plenty of opportunity to listen to Your Heart.